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Project/Program <br />Summary <br />This project is a request for $2000 to pay honoraria to 5 local culturally <br />diverse performing artists/groups for their performance at the 26th Mildred <br />Council Annual Community Dinner on April 26 2026 at the McDougle <br />Schools, Carrboro. The match to this request is the $2000 cost of the <br />space rental which includes the large cafeteria stage. I am the co-founder <br />of the event and have been its project director for 28 years. (W e did not <br />have dinners during COVID) W hile the event has as its fiscal agent the <br />Orange County Office for Civil Rights/ Civil Life (formerly the Orange <br />County Office for Equity and Inclusion) the entertainment aspect of the <br />event is a separate entity from the financial operations pertaining to the <br />Dinner itself. As project director it is my responsibility to fund local <br />performers separately. For years performers were not paid. I began paying <br />the entertainers serious honoraria for their performances at the 25th <br />Dinner on April 28th 2025 with funding from a 2024/25 Orange County <br />Artist Project Grant. This funding enabled the project to secure five high <br />quality culturally diverse performing artists/groups early on in the planning <br />stage with promised honoraria and resulted in better staged performances <br />than in previous years. Local performers felt respected on receipt of <br />payment. W e are in the planning stage of the 26th Dinner to be held on <br />April 26th 2026 and the project's committee of diverse community partners <br />will meet in mid-July to select performers for the event. W e already have <br />suggestions, but these have to be voted on by the committee These <br />include an African American church choir, a high school jazz group, a <br />Hispanic dance group, a local puppeteer group, a native American drum <br />group and the Seymour Center's Chinese choir. The project's <br />organizational committee includes representatives from the UNC Press, the <br />Orange County US Veterans Center, Chapel Hill / Carrboro City Schools/ <br />Blue Ribbon Mentor program, the Seymour Senior Center, Orange County <br />Office of Civil Rights/ Civil Life, and the late Mildred Council's family <br />members. Once our performers are secured we will begin updating the <br />event's website -communitydinner.org-and start publicizing the event with <br />the performer's images, videos and contact information. Closer to the <br />event we will start publicizing the event in culturally diverse media, on local <br />radio stations and will connect the performers with our sound engineer to <br />ensure that their performance needs will be properly met. The event space- <br />the Mc Dougle Schools Cafeteria i has a big stage and seating capacity <br />with tables for over 550 people. In the work samples I have included the <br />performers from the 2025 event. This ives you an idea of what we will be <br />including in our 2026 Project. I will notify OCAC on selection of our <br />performers if I am fortunate enough to receive an Artist Project Grant. <br />Docusign Envelope ID: 0B19D235-D0B9-43E7-9E42-29E0801EAF4B